ETKN Digital Collaboratory (EDC) digitization project (3TNZ)
Description (3TO0)
The purpose of the EDC is to create more transportation content available online through the Transportation Research Board’s TRIS Online database and the National Transportation Library’s Digital Repository. ETKN is targeting high-use, high-request, or high-value documents (i.e. those items partons tend to ask for, which nobody seems able to find, and which we want to therefore expand access to).Each ETKN member is asked to identify and contribute five (5) documents from their institution. (3TO1)
This is an initiative to expand access to content, not necessarily to permanently archive it in digital format so that print copies can be destroyed. (3TOW)
How to Submit Documents to the EDC (3TR9)
After reviewing the "Criteria for Selection of Documents" and "Format" sections on this page, please complete the following steps to contribute to the EDC (indexing in TRIS and full-text preservation and access through the NTL): (3TRA)
1. Document should be in “searchable” PDF format (3TRB)
2. Email document or URL to rosalyn.alleman@dot.gov and tracey.schut@dot.gov with the subject "ETKN Digitization Project" (3TRC)
3. By sending document, you agree that document is in the public domain or you give permission to the NTL to archive and make freely available over the Internet (3TRD)
Criteria for Selection of Documents (3TO2)
Research reports are ideal for this project. Planning documents or EIS's (especially long or oversize) are more problematic but may be acceptable. (3TO3)
- document published within the last 10 years (1997-2007) (3TO4)
- (preferably) already indexed in TRIS Online and/or WorldCat.org, but with no link to a digital version (3TO5)
- content is the intellectual property of the organization submitting it to eliminate copyright as an issue (3TO6)
- document is short (ideally 25-60 pages for 8 1/2 x 11) and does not contain excessive color, images or other elements difficult to deal with. (3TO7)
- needs to be a published report (we don't want ephemera, things that led to other things, memos, etc.) (3TO8)
- clean "original" copy that can be disbound is best. Note: digitization may result in destruction of original. (3TO9)
Format (3TOA)
The format for materials in the EDC should be searchable PDFs (images wrapped with OCR'd text). (3TOB)
- For items that need to be scanned, the VDOT Research Library can digitize items that ETKN members send to them (3TOC)
- For items already in PDF format, they will need to be submitted to NTL and TRIS Online (procedure above) (3TOD)
Measuring Outcomes (3TOE)
The outcome measures for this project are (1) the number of documents and number of insituttions contributing to the ETKN Digital Collaboratory and (2) the number of downloads ETKN Digital Collaboratory documents receive. (3TOF)